This vehicle was crushed in an accident that killed five from Long Island on the Taconic State Parkway. (July 26, 2009) Photo Credit: 1010 WINS / Sonia Rincon

A friend of Warren Hance, father of three girls in the van, calls New York State Police and speaks with a desk sergeant.

Friend: I’m actually trying to help a friend right now and I need some information. Their children are on their way home from a camping trip with their aunt. They just called my friend's house in distress saying that the aunt is driving home erratically. They're at a rest center, the best they can understand is they were in Tarrytown or Sleepy Hollow, those are the signs that they saw. The aunt isn't picking up the cell phone right now. We live in Long Island. My friend just jumped in his car and he's heading up north. We're trying to track down, um, track down this rest center. That's the first thing. The second thing is, is there anything that you guys can do, but we don't know where they are, that's, that's the problem.

Mallard: Listen, I have a family here that thinks they might have a medical emergency of their sister who was traveling from Monticello down to Long Island. Their sister called, she can't talk anymore, there's three kids in the car, five, they're trying to locate her. They're driving a Windstar. . . . Do you know if there's any way to track her cell phone to get a location if I give you her number?

Mallard: I don't know what service, I just know the phone number. It's Verizon? It's Verizon.

Sergeant: Yeah, we could check with Verizon. We probably just have to fax them that we're doing an investigation and locate this, and they could probably get us that information, if it's obtainable or not.

Mallard: Can you do that?

Sergeant: Yeah, I can attempt to do it. Sometimes they won't, you know, but it depends, we can try it.